Alteryx Raises $60M To Power Data Blending And Analytics

The problem with a frothy investment market is that it takes a really big funding round to gain attention. $10 million here or $20 million there doesn’t really move the needle much. But when an early stage company that has only raised a series A previously announces $60 million as a Series B, that gets attention. And that is the fortunate position that Alteryx is in today. The company is announcing a round led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from existing investors, SAPVentures and Toba Capital.

Alteryx is a player in the data blending and analytics space. Alteryx Analytics gives analysts workflow for both data blending and the analytics to apply to their data. Alteryx combines all types of data – from internal systems, third party data sets and cloud inputs. The analysis happens without any programming using drag and drop tools.

Over the past year Alteryx has seen a 200% growth in its customer base and now boasts of 600 customers. Since their solution is priced at $4,000 per user per year, and since those 600 customers have thousands of individual data analysts, you can see that the revenue Alteryx is generating looks pretty impressive for a relatively small company.

Alteryx is following an emerging trend which is to combine data blending and modeling in one product. Traditionally that has required separate products – Alteryx wraps up the entire process. Alteryx partners closely with Tableau and Qlik to provide data analysts an easy way to push their analytics into a visual platform.

It is also borrowing a page from the growing trend towards marketplaces. Alteryx has a collection of prebuilt data models in its “analytics gallery”. Customers can offer their own models up to the gallery and also use models that other organizations have used for similar problems. Alteryx also offers up its own models – as much to get people thinking about analytics as to actually be used in the field.

Alteryx is actually based on the R statistical programming language and hence there is a logical transition path for existing R users. Companies like Verizon and Ingersoll Rand are using Alteryx for both new analytics models and existing ones. The company has also been developing a partner channel with both consulting and technology partners.

All things seem to be pointing in the right direction for Alteryx. One only wonders whether they stay independent or get hoovered up by a bigger player.

I am a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. I am the director of Diversity Limited, a business that is a vehicle for my work in investment, advice and consultancy. Diversity has holdings in manufacturing, property and technology companie...